Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Mayday! M'aidez!

I was reminded last night that the distress call Mayday is merely an Englished spelling of the French m'aidez, which means Help me.

While I'm here, I should, perhaps, point out that SOS doesn't stand for anything. It's simply very easy to transmit in Morse Code. When SOS was thought up, there was an alternative suggestion that the signal should be CQD, standing for Come Quickly, Distress, but it was too hard to transmit.

The French have obviously had more trouble at sea. The Internationally accepted "Mayday" signal (i.e.I'm sinking) is backed up by 2 more types of signal : "PAN-PAN" (i.e. I've broken down near the rocks) and by "Sécurité" (i.e. I need to tell people that the navigation lights near the rocks have broken down)

Popular myth. But it's a folk etymology or a back-formation or something. It's no coincidence that it's the two easiest letters to remember. And you don't actually repeat 'SOS SOS...', it's 'SOSOSOSO...' so it couldn't really stand for that.

There are so many Englishisms flooding in here in France. (They like our -ing words a lot: parking, meeting, shampooing - and even invent of their own: relooking, footing.) I called my notes on the deluge M'aider Mayday: http://maidermayday.blogspot.fr/

Taste the Elements of Eloquence

The Horologicon is out in America

The Horologicon is a book of the strangest and most beautiful words in the English language arranged by the hour of the day when you will really need them. Words for breakfast, for commuting, for working, for dining, for drinking and for getting lost on the way home. It runs from uhtceare (sadness before dawn) to curtain lecture (a telling off given by your spouse in bed). It's out all over the world and you can buy it from these lovely people: